"His only object," adds Vasari, "was to keep the originals, by giving copies in exchange; seeing that he admired them as specimens of art, and sought to surpass them by his own handling; and in doing this he acquired great renown." We may pause to doubt whether at the present time--in the case, for instance, of Shelley letters or Rossetti drawings--clever forgeries would be accepted as so virtuous and laudable.

But it ought to be remembered that a Florentine workshop at that period contained masses of accumulated designs, all of which were more or less the common property of the painting firm.

No single specimen possessed a high market value.

It was, in fact, only when art began to expire in Italy, when Vasari published his extensive necrology and formed his famous collection of drawings, that property in a sketch became a topic for moral casuistry.
Of Michelangelo's own work at this early period we possess probably nothing except a rough scrawl on the plaster of a wall at Settignano.
Even this does not exist in its original state.

The Satyr which is still shown there may, according to Mr.Heath Wilson's suggestion, be a _rifacimento_ from the master's hand at a subsequent period of his career.
V Condivi and Vasari differ considerably in their accounts of Michelangelo's departure from Ghirlandajo's workshop.